In the past several years, as use of mobile devices has become increasingly common, implementation of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) in business and public establishments has become more widespread. For example, WLANs may be installed in office buildings, libraries, cafés, etc. A WLAN is a type of local area network that uses radio waves to communicate between nodes, as opposed to using wires. Specifically, one or more access points (“APs”) may be wired to a communications network. The APs may transmit and receive radio frequency (“RF”) signals to/from a plurality of WLAN stations located within the APs coverage area. Thus, the stations may communicate with and through the communications network.
Depending on a size of an environment implementing WLAN technology, a large quantity of APs may necessarily be deployed in order to provide adequate coverage. For example, a large office building wherein a number of employees are attempting to access the WLAN may require deployment of a significant quantity of APs. However, placement of the APs is crucial. While it is undesirable for APs in close proximity to interfere with one another, it is also undesirable for remotely placed APs to provide inadequate coverage. Interference may result in a corruption of data packets transmitted through the AP, transmission delays, and lower performance. In addition, stations located equidistant between two APs may flip-flop back and forth, continually reassociating with each AP and thereby sacrificing performance and efficiency. Inadequate coverage may result in an inability of one or more WLAN stations to maintain a stable connection to the network.
Dense WLAN deployments are inevitable for several reasons. For example, they may be necessary to eliminate coverage holes for a large-scale WLAN, and to maintain a high signal to noise ratio (SNR) to assure high data rates everywhere. Further, in crowded places (e.g., apartment buildings) many APs with different owners may be deployed without coordination. Where dense WLAN deployments exist, throughput of WLAN stations may suffer. For example, if channels are inadequately assigned to neighboring APs, with which the WLAN stations are associated, each WLAN station may have to compete for the same channel in order to exchange data with their APs. Thus, the channel becomes overloaded. Although there may be other channels available, a number of channels is typically limited. With only a small number of channels available, and a considerable number of stations requiring network access, problems (e.g., regarding throughput and interference) still exist in WLANs. Thus, an efficient method of deploying a plurality of APs in a WLAN, while minimizing interference and maximizing overall throughput, is desired.